Howdy all,

Once again, one of the great endurance challenges is about to take place right in our own beloved Gunks, the 3rd annual American Zofingen Duathlon.

http://www.americanzofingen.racesonline.com/

For the truly adventurous (former regular G-com'ers Edk and myself are both doing long course this year), there is the Full Monty:
5.0 mile trail run / 84.0 mile road bike / 15.0 mile trail run. Very demanding hills throughout (2,914 feet climbing on run course; 8,121 feet climbing bike course).

For those who would like to just get a taste of the epic adventure, there is also the Short Course option:

Short Course: 5 mile trail run / 29 mile road bike / 5 mile trail run, on the same circuits as the long course.

Go BIG and go LONG, or go Short and then drink beer and heckle Ed and I and the rest of the LC crew as we go around again, and again...

Yours truly is going to attempt to win the prime for the lowest combined SOS Survival of the Shawangunks and A-Z time.
(alas - the 3rd place SOS finisher is also racing A-Z, so I really have my work cut out for me, to try to overcome the 17 minute deficit)

Wish us luck! Hope to see you there!
-M

WOW!!

Murphyslaw was #3 overall, and EDK #22 in the long course

WTG!!!

You guys are great! Hope you enjoyed the day and have recovered well.
The SOS looks like such a FUN event but I am not going to get into triathlons just yet in order to qualify.

Great job.

Along Ironman lines, I think the true Gunks Tri would be a combination of the Wagathon, SOS and the Zofingen bike course.

Only Iron(wo)men need apply!

What do you think? I can't swim but would do the running and biking.

Thanks all for the well-wishes!!!

SOS is a great event, but not for the inexperienced.
(it specifically has minimum qualification guidelines to protect folks from themselves)

A-Z is just a very challenging, and very beautiful, course.

Even tho it is shorter than an IM (probably takes about 75-80% of the time of an Iron-distance event), I think that due to all the climbing it's actually much harder to finish.

Plus, often you are out there all alone, or maybe you'll have one other racer somewhere in the vicinity, compared to an IM where you have 2,000+ of your closest friends racing with you, and another few thousand spectators cheering ya on.

I'm already signed up again for next year.
http://www.americanzofingen.racesonline.com/
is the link if'n ya wanna give it a go next year....
and for a limited time, registration is only $75!!!
(for Long Course or Short Course, and there's also a new team Relay option as well)